The Last Season (23 page)

Randy asked the other packers the man's name, but they knew him only as “Tom.” That night Randy queried Laurie Church, who was near LeConte at a trail-crew camp. She said she had met the guy in previous years and he'd never seemed very friendly.

The next day Randy hiked out of the canyon again. At the rim where Dusy Basin begins, he encountered three people, two men and a woman, off the trail eating lunch. Without a word, one man handed Randy a wilderness permit. Randy exchanged some jokes with the other two backpackers and then, since the permit had been issued by the Rainbow Pack Station, he inquired where the packer was and where he was taking their gear.

At this, the man with the permit “explodes at me,” wrote Randy. “He's angry because I ask questions (‘Why don't you just ask the packer!') and he wants me to leave. (‘I don't like you. I don't like rangers. I don't want you near me. I can't believe you don't leave when I've told you to. Etc.' shouted angrily.) Is he suddenly going to jump up and attack me? I try to ask what is the real problem (more, ‘I don't like you.'), try to talk to him in the hopes we can calm this down. He gets angrier.

“Presently he began stuffing things in his pack, and said, ‘I'm going to have to leave since you won't. You've ruined my lunch.'”

Alone with the other two hikers, Randy asked if he could talk to them for a few minutes. They invited him to sit. The man's friend “gently and politely tried to explain this guy sometimes has trouble with officious rangers,” wrote Randy. “I don't doubt, with that kind of pugnacious attitude. So he just hates all rangers, and explodes at them. Then I learn this is the guy we rescued off the Hermit in 1988! A bunch of rangers, helicopters, a day and a night and into the next day…and all he can think is that rangers cause him grief! Ingrate! Whew!

“They are in now to climb on Devil's Crags. The day in 1988 I helped get this guy off the Hermit I spent the morning helping get a body off Devil's Crags.

“So…we aren't going to change anyone. People only change themselves. There's no magic phrase to cause Satori. Only we can contain these things, prevent its getting worse, control it gently; and stand my ground—not be pushed, manipulated, or threatened successfully. Don't have to take it, but don't strike back. Firm, polite, resistance. Stand my ground.”

Randy continued on his patrol away from his cabin, toward Bishop Pass, and eventually met up with Ed Bailey, the cowboy working for Rainbow Pack Outfitters who was leading three mules carrying the climbers' gear. They spoke for a while, and Randy commented in his logbook that Bailey was “pleasant.” The gear was being dropped off at Grouse Meadow. Then, the packer told Randy, he planned to camp at Ladder Lake, using pellets he'd brought along as feed.

Randy was impressed.

The packers operating in the High Sierra had been lobbying to increase the stock limit from twenty head to twenty-five per group. Bailey admitted to Randy, “I'd rather stay with twenty; my pay doesn't go up for handling more.”

“He could work for us with an attitude like that,” wrote Randy that night.

Randy relayed the tense moments he'd experienced with “Packer Tom” three days earlier. Bailey supplied the packer's last name. Then Randy described the altercation he'd had just an hour before. As they parted ways, Bailey turned in his saddle and said what Randy described as an “encouraging word”:

“I used to work at Harrah's. Sometimes you have to be 7 feet tall!”

Two days later, on August 13, Randy hiked to Grouse Meadow to check up on the three Devil's Crags climbers. He spotted a blue tent below the meadow and went to investigate. The tent was “torn up, fly ripped off, poles bent or broken, clothes bags inside torn open”—destroyed by a bear.

Randy wrote, “There were torn nylon bags on the ground and food residue and packages, wrappers, punctured cans, jars, fresh fruit, 2 wine bottles scattered around camp and into the grass and the wind starting to blow some of it away. This stuff isn't carried into the mountains by hikers; there were stock tracks into camp and there has been no stock over Bishop Pass and into the canyon except that packing for these climbers.”

Via radio, Randy contacted a frontcountry ranger, who contacted Rainbow Pack Station and got the address for Doug Mantle, the signer for the backcountry permit. After weighting down the garbage most apt to blow away, Randy hiked back to his station. “Should have carried away the food mess,” he wrote, “but it was much more than I could deal with in a day pack.” That night, Randy was informed that Packer Tom had been fired for his behavior on Bishop Pass.

By season's end, Randy had met up with Lyness a handful of times, including what Durkee said was their “last patrol together” in Lake Basin. Combined with the two weeks at the beginning of the season, she'd spent more time patrolling with Randy recently than anybody else. Some rangers, who had experienced their own relationship challenges as a result of their jobs, were sympathetic to Lyness and Randy, the oft-quoted line being “Hey, it gets lonely out there.” Word on the street, or trail, among other backcountry rangers was, according to Durkee, “Aren't they old enough to know better?” followed by “It's all fun and games till somebody gets hurt.” This time it was Lyness, who by now was “in pretty deep emotionally,” says Durkee.

On September 16, Randy hiked to Bench Lake to help Lyness pack up and “demobilize” the station for the winter. “After helping Lo take down the station,” says Durkee, “Randy told her he couldn't see her anymore because he was going to try to work things out with Judi.” According to Durkee, this “devastated” Lyness, and, as the man in the middle, exhausted Durkee even though he wasn't technically involved. He tried to make sense of it. He knew Randy had been in a bad way since his mother's death. He was fairly certain that event had triggered a midlife crisis, which didn't justify his stringing both Judi and Lyness along the last couple of years. Likewise, it “wasn't quite correct
to call Lo a victim either,” says Durkee. “She was every bit as assertive in pushing the relationship with Randy, and she did know he was married.” The only true victim, thought Durkee, was Judi.

SUNDAY, JULY
27: the effort to locate Randy Morgenson had grown to fifty-five persons, including twenty-seven ground searchers, three helicopters, and three dog teams, two of which were dispatched to the cliff area Durkee and Lyness had searched with Cowboy. These dogs weren't trained to follow a specific person's scent; instead, they would alert on any human scent in the area. One dog was also cadaver-trained.

It was the third day of the search, and “word got around that there was a cadaver dog on scene,” says Rick Sanger, “and even though that's very common, it really drove the seriousness of the operation straight into my gut. Normally, you can disassociate yourself on a SAR, but hearing the word ‘cadaver,' I couldn't help but visualize Randy somewhere out there dead or dying. It really affected me, made me want to do everything possible. In the morning, I'd see some of the searchers taking their time eating breakfast or relaxing with a cup of coffee instead of hus
tling, and it really pissed me off.”

Lo Lyness, on the other hand, was on the trail before 8
A.M.
, searching the southeast section of Upper Basin, which was northeast of Bench Lake. Her team performed a modified grid search, linking corridors of terrain so as not to miss any part of the area assigned. Even though it was “extremely unlikely” Randy would have taken a route through the steep talus slope above Cardinal Lake, they stuck to the plan and covered that as well. Some fresh tracks between the lake and Taboose Pass were found but were soon discounted as those from another team that had overlapped their search-segment border. Frustrating on the one hand, but effective on the other: better to overlap another segment than to leave a gap.

Laurie Church and Dave Gordon were on the second day of their assignment when they headed north, off the Woods Creek Trail on a cross-country route into Segment M—the Window Peak Lake area. Segment M was almost 5,000 acres of rock, high-alpine tundra, and steep couloirs, with a creek connecting a series of pocket lakes spilling down the canyon over granite shelves. It was one of the southernmost search segments. When the initial team of rangers calculated the Mattson consensus, this area had been given a low 2.2 percent POD based on the fact that Randy had patrolled in this general direction less than a week before he disappeared.

Church and Gordon went up the drainage from the south, using binoculars to examine the high routes into the basin and looking for footprints in the prevalent snowfields. They found nothing to suggest anybody had come through this area—not a footprint or a slide mark or an overturned rock. Unfortunately, twenty-seven searchers covering a dozen other segments had no better luck. On schedule, late-afternoon thunderstorms punctuated the mood of yet another day—Randy's seventh day missing—without a single viable clue.

Drifting gray storm clouds shrouded Marjorie Lake Basin as Lyness returned to the backcountry incident command post at the Bench Lake ranger station. She was exhausted, she'd heard no good news so far, and she understood that, statistically speaking, if a missing person
wasn't found on this, the third day of an SAR, “they're either dead or you're never going to find them.” With this belief, she walked into the impromptu enclave of the field command post. By this time it was pouring rain and one of the first people to approach her was Special Agent Al DeLaCruz.

Most of the rangers respected DeLaCruz and appreciated or at least understood his difficult job as a wilderness detective during the Morgenson search. The fact that DeLaCruz didn't know Randy very well made his job slightly easier, but since most of the parks' personnel did know and like Randy, he had learned to tread lightly. However, DeLaCruz couldn't discount anything. He vigorously pursued all options. He had already spoken with Judi Morgenson who gave him permission to monitor bank accounts and credit cards, none of which had been accessed by Randy since before the season began. Still, the idea that a person would stage his disappearance in the Sierra backcountry wasn't unprecedented.

In July 1978, David Cunningham was reported overdue from a backpacking trip in Yosemite. The search lasted two and a half weeks and cost the NPS more than $20,000—a significant amount at the time. Search teams were exposed to hundreds of hours of hazardous terrain, including steep snowfields, wild rivers, and sheer rock faces. As stated in the case incident record, “All this effort was unneeded because Cunningham was not lost, but had decided to leave his wife and family for personal reasons” without telling anyone. The mystery was solved only when a friend received a postcard from Cunningham weeks after the search had been called off. He had taken a bus across the country and was lying low in Bangor, Maine.

DeLaCruz's conversation with Lyness began with the same scripted disclaimer as with all his interviews: “I know this is difficult for you—being a friend of Randy's—but I hope you can understand that we're trying to get to the bottom of this. There are some difficult questions I need to ask you, and I hope you understand it's in the best interest of finding Randy and the safety and well-being of all the searchers involved.”

From a distance, the conversation appeared casual but, as the increased volume and body language indicated, “you could tell Lo wasn't taking the questions kindly,” remembers Durkee, who was mingling with some other rangers nearby. It didn't take long—DeLaCruz ended the questioning when Lyness broke down, crying. In the interest of privacy, DeLaCruz will not divulge the dialogue between himself and Lyness, but he does acknowledge that it was the most difficult interview he conducted during the SAR and that, due to her emotions, Lyness hadn't offered “any information that was of benefit to the investigation.” He was, however, “absolutely certain” she was completely genuine in her distress and honestly had no idea where Randy was.

Indeed, Lyness wrote in her logbook, “By today, there can be no question that Randy's seriously injured or no longer alive.” She went on to describe the interview with DeLaCruz: “Got home to face interrogation by ‘investigations.' Obviously pursuing a heavy suspicion that RM either left the park or did himself in. Neither option is one any of us who knew him well find possible. He would have to have turned into a person none of us knows to do either of these things. And the insinuation that he might be ‘hiding out' is patently absurd. All of those options rate right up there with aliens and a spaceship. When you don't turn up clues, it's always easier to believe the person isn't there. I find the intrusions into Randy's personal life to be jarring and harsh. An unpleasant evening, at best.”

 

ON THE OTHER SIDE
of the parks, soaked from a different cloudburst, backcountry ranger Nina Weisman was returning to her station at Bearpaw Meadow. She represented a faction in the parks who struggled through one of the most frustrating, helpless duties in the Morgenson search—not taking part.

Weisman had adopted Randy as her mentor in 1988, the season he'd impressed her “more than words can convey” when he called out over the radio to make sure Robin Ingraham—the climber who'd lost his best friend on the Devil's Crags—was not left alone. Another time, Randy had talked her out of an embarrassing situation when she was a
newbie trailhead ranger who got lost her first time off-trail. She hadn't actually been lost, she'd just doubted herself, and it was Randy who came to her rescue via radio. His calm voice had put her immediately at ease. He asked her about her surroundings: What trail had she left from? What did the terrain look like? The trees? Did she hear water? Where was the sun in relation to the peaks? After more than a dozen questions, he reassured her that she was exactly where she thought she was. “He gave me the confidence I needed to go on that day,” says Weisman, “but in other ways, the confidence to follow my dream to go for it. Become a backcountry ranger. He nudged me over the edge—off the trails—where I learned to enjoy the real magic of being totally and completely alone in the backcountry.”

More than anything Randy had taught her to “pay attention and don't walk too fast. You might miss something.”

After having worked eight years at various positions in the park, from toilet scrubber to trailhead ranger to bear management specialist, Weisman had finally earned her ultimate assignment in 1996: a backcountry ranger with her own station. Randy was one of the first people she'd shared the thrilling news with, and she looked forward to many more seasons working with Randy, whom she described as “one of the kindest souls to ever walk the trails in this park.”

Now he was missing, and she was angry because she had not been chosen to take part in the SAR, despite her knowledge of the search area.

Weisman had spent the day cleaning fire pits around Mehrten Creek; on the way back, the rainstorm hit. “I was a mile from home after a depressing 12-mile day,” she says. “I was listening to the radio traffic about the search and was really upset. I couldn't help thinking something bad had happened to Randy, so I was just plodding through the rain, getting madder and madder that I wasn't invited to help in the search—kind of having one of those internal conversations—and I tripped on some rocks, fell forward, and ripped my knee open.

“I was close to home, so I wrapped a bandana around it, and there was blood and soot from the fires and it was streaming down my leg from the rain. The pain started throbbing, and I thought, ‘Geez, I was
depressed and mad and it made me not pay attention, just for a second, and look what happened.'

“I knew from training that Randy was having a really bad summer and was depressed about stuff, and it hit me that he was probably not super careful, not on his toes, not in that place you have to be mentally out here, and he might have just tripped, except in a very bad spot. I was on a trail and just hit rocks. Randy, I knew, was somewhere off-trail. I got more and more depressed—it was hard for those of us who wanted to help but had to listen to the radio and watch the helicopters flying all over the place. That night I couldn't help but think Randy was out there seriously injured.

“I can't tell you how many times I considered abandoning my post to go join in the search. That's how worried I was. But then I realized I wasn't the only one. There were other rangers who wanted to take part, but there was still a park full of people. There were still bears stealing food, and injuries to attend to, and permits to check. My presence was needed here at Bearpaw. I told myself that every single night of the search.”

 

AFTER THE DISAPPOINTING
results of day three of Randy's SAR, the overhead team members at the Cedar Grove fire station command post racked their brains for alternative search methods. While conversing with one of the California Highway Patrol officers whose unit was donating personnel for the cause, Dave Ashe was told that the Army Air National Guard in Reno possessed a special asset that could prove helpful—a night helicopter equipped with forward-looking infrared (FLIR), which detected body heat. Ashe, who had already used California's Office of Emergency Services (OES) to disseminate their needs to the SAR community, again approached his OES contact with the hope of gaining access to the military's state-of-the-art technology. The initial problem was that the SAR was in California, and Reno is in Nevada. But since the California Guard's ship was not available, the OES contacted Nevada's Department of Emergency Management, which authorized the mission.

Chief Warrant Officer III Bob Bagnato and Chief Warrant Officer II Darren Chrisman got the call a little before 9
P.M.
on Saturday, July 27. Their OH-58 (Bell Jet Ranger) helicopter landed at Cedar Grove three hours later.

At 0100, Bagnato and Chrisman, dubbed “Recon 71,” were high above the search area and getting a bearing on the boundaries of the assignment by referring to their GPS and visual landmarks—in this case, massive granite ridgelines that glowed green through their night-vision goggles.

Even though many military pilots had bootlegged low-level flights into Kings Canyon National Park, this was apparently the first authorized night flight. Coffman's admonition to “try and focus on the higher, more rugged terrain that isn't easily accessible on foot” was something Recon 71 had agreed to, “if conditions allow.” Now some of the higher ridgelines were shrouded by cloud cover, but the wind was mercifully light, making navigation a little less wicked.

The biggest concern with any search, but especially a search at this altitude, was maintaining enough speed and altitude to allow pilots to fly out of any potential mechanical failures while sticking to their search-and-rescue mantra: “slow and low.” That meant 20 to 40 knots; any faster and they'd lose their edge as an effective search tool. Bagnato and Chrisman were dedicated night fliers, so their missions were often poised between the operational periods of searches. Normally, there is very little small talk during briefing and often they don't even know whom they're searching for. “Just a warm body,” says Chrisman. But this time they knew it was a ranger, and that it was his seventh night out there alone.

“That just stuck out for me—lucky 7,” he says. “I started that night out with real high hopes that we'd find him.”

Between the two, Bagnato had more mountain flying hours, so he was the designated pilot in the right-hand seat while Chrisman operated the FLIR camera in the left-hand seat. Standard strategy was to fly one “high recon,” about 1,000 feet above ground level, to take a look at the search area and identify any points of interest: trails, creeks, anywhere
a person would likely gravitate toward. Then they would make a lower pass over these points of interest, which could include game trails that were difficult to see on the ground but with night-vision technology looked “like a sidewalk.”

Once these two passes were made, a low-level grid search would follow strict GPS coordinates, first east to west and then north to south. The two systems, night vision and thermal, work well together: what one can't see, the other can. In densely vegetated or wooded areas, the same lines are flown both directions to better see into the varying degrees of cover.